Political Blow for Mugabe As Opposition Speaker’s Election is Upheld by Courts

Lovemore Moyo - Parliament Speaker

The High Court of Zimbabwe has refused to overturn the election of the first opposition Speaker of Parliament since the country’s independence. The decision comes after a challenge by a member of parliament from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. This is an important ruling as it will ease concerns within the MDC, which accuses its coalition partners in ZANU-PF of carrying out actions that seek to undermine the fragile unity government. It also undermines the work of Zanu-PF in their effort to destabilise the MDC makeup in government. Mugabe must be pinching his backside as this is a serious blow to him politically as well.

A senior official from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, became the first opposition Speaker in August 2008 after the MDC ended ZANU-PF’s majority in parliament in earlier elections. Lovemore Moyo’s election was immediately challenged by former information minister Jonathan Moyo, who argued that the vote failed to meet the test of a secret ballot. According to Moyo, some MDC members had openly shown their ballot papers to other legislators in a move meant to influence them in their voting and that the whole process was chaotic.

The High Court Judge, Bharat Patel described the vote as “exuberant” and said while some MDC members had shown their ballot papers to colleagues, the actual voting was done in secret. According to him “It’s clear that all members marked their ballot papers in secrecy and none were coerced to vote for any candidate.” The judge went on to say “The application is therefore dismissed with costs.”

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